Stratfor Worldview: Where the North Korean Crisis Meets the Iran Nuclear DealBy virtue of its military might, the United States has the unique ability to quickly — and credibly — place its most intractable adversaries under existential threat. Command over the world's most powerful military gives a country options, and the option of regime change can be a tempting one for Washington as it tries to work through some of its more maddening foreign policy dilemmas.

There is something cool, slightly brittle, about the way this pretty young woman writes (dismissing NKorea's justifiable fears of US-instigated regime change as "paranoia" while strongly casting the US as the potential victim rather than a formidable threat), so I had to look up her credentials. She is, of course, a "leading global strategic analyst" and "keeps her finger on the pulse of emerging trends" - literally a walking media catch-phrase.

Her education is much more interesting. With an undergrad degree in political science, she won her master's at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in the Centre for Security Studies, which was originally housed in the Pentagon in 1977 until it found a (less-controversial?) home at Georgetown, and where policy specialists are churned out with ready-made resumes that provide a head start in forming corporate alliances whose members are regularly published as opinion experts in various news media.

Her article seems to be a replay of one written earlier by a Georgetown professor whose prejudices include the suggestion that Obama was too soft on the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons. Apparently, an association with the Centre for Security Studies at Georgetown provides a considerable amount of leeway to turn conjecture (or outright propaganda?) into recorded - and widely promulgated - fact.

The underlying theme is that the US desperately needs to avert the threat of nuclear proliferation (citing both NKorea and Iran), which is all well and good, but there is never a suggestion that the offending entities -- while understandably nervous nellies -- have any kind of a legitimate case against the US or Israel.

Basically, what the "security specialists" are saying, in effect, is "If I ruled the world" things would go more smoothly, because, well, politics is a science, right? And nobody questions science except -- too seldom given who funds them -- other scientists.

As a further example of strategic innuendo, an Adjunct Georgetown Professor and former active duty U.S. Army officer closes an article on the situation in Israel/Palestine with this:

Thankfully, the United States today does not face an equivalent of Gaza along its borders. And yet, in a world filled with odious actors where regime change may not be a viable option, the United States also confronts the challenge of figuring out how to break bones without sending people to the hospital, so to speak. [Bolding added]

So, it's not that Israel is breaking International Law; it's that Israel lacks a certain finesse in its methods of putting down bad behaviour from the pesky Palestinians.

In other words: most countries are threats in some way except for Israel and the US -- with Canada and Mexico lacking the nerve to challenge either of them -- and what's sorely needed is some expert (security specialist) guidance where "regime change may not be a viable option".

Another Georgetown professor's article regarding the causes of extremism asserts, under the heading "The Victim Card":

Many extremist groups thrive on righting what they perceive as a historic wrong.“If you look at Palestinians, for instance, many feel like the Israelis have given them a bad deal.

Surely it's not necessary here to point out who is really playing the "The Victim Card"!

It's as if Georgetown is turning out Stepford Security Specialists, just lock-step operating on a single basic contention - US good, everybody else iffy at best. Nobody ever says quit this psychopathic need for power, righteousness and acquisition; banish nuclear bombs once and for all, and get on with the original purpose of the UN - that was to end all wars.

Only by taking the view that the US and Israel are innocent victims, does the Stratfor article begin to make a weird bit of sense:

The more frustrated he becomes with the North Korean dilemma, the more energy the U.S. president has put into lining up loyalists to try to limit interference in his agenda for Iran. Two key figures in the Middle East have exerted heavy influence over that agenda: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two leaders, in fact, are so eager for the opportunity to shape a more aggressive U.S. policy toward Iran that they are downplaying their animosity for each other and collaborating in the open.

That's true.

Agreeing to abandon the quest for nuclear weapons didn't save Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, as Pyongyang and Tehran well know.

That is sadly very true!

But the United States doesn't have to shoulder the historical baggage and the centuries of animosity that drive competition in the Middle East. It has the luxury of distance, from which it can manipulate the balance of power at will. In other words, while Israel and Saudi Arabia perceive Iran to be an existential threat, the same may not be true for the United States. Its removal from the situation gives Washington the space to manage Iran through a more assertive policy of strategic containment that stops short of reintroducing the menace of regime change and thus keeps the country from having to resort to more extreme measures. Therein lies the difference between strategic and ideological policymaking. As the North Korea conundrum gives rise to a more precarious age of nuclear deterrence, that difference will matter all the more. [underlining added]

This is just pathetic, in that it suggests the US could actually act independent of Israel and the Saudis. Fat chance of that happening, when Israel and Saudi Arabia have been leading the US by the nose for quite some time. (Since 9/11, maybe?) Maybe they know too much? Maybe even more than any political scientist grad, however popular they may be with the complicit corporate media.

Notice the blatant plug (underlined above by me) for the paid services of graduates of the School of Security Studies at Georgetown U.

---------------------------------Further US take on the Iran deal outlined by the CFRRe: the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action: JCPOAThe Impact of the Iran Nuclear Agreement---------------------------------BELOW: (AP Photo) King Salman with former US President Bush.New York, NY -- March 21st, 2017 -- Eight-hundred families of 9/11 victims and 1,500 first responders, along with others who suffered as a result of the attacks, have filed a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia over its alleged complicity in the 2001 terror attacks

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